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View Poll Results: Does Mitt's history as a prankster mean he's a bad president-to-be?

God, Scythe, you are kiiillin' it with the straw men! Smoking crack is already illegal, so breastfeeding while smoking crack would likewise be a no-no. Also, not wanting the government to tell me what I can do with my uterus would seem to be in line with most other conservative 'The got-damn gub'ment ain't gonna tell me what to do with my ____' arguments. Funny how that works. It's actually not funny.

Additionally, if Ayn Rand were publicly anti-gay marriage, it would be monstrously hypocritical if it were revealed after her death that she was gay married. Knowing you're a student of basic logic, it would follow that being publicly anti-government social programs and then collecting on one of those government social programs is pretty damn hypocritical.

God, Scythe, you are kiiillin' it with the straw men! Smoking crack is already illegal, so breastfeeding while smoking crack would likewise be a no-no. Also, not wanting the government to tell me what I can do with my uterus would seem to be in line with most other conservative 'The got-damn gub'ment ain't gonna tell me what to do with my ____' arguments. Funny how that works. It's actually not funny.

Not a straw man. A straw man is substituting someone's words with a caricature of what they said in order create the illusion that you refuted them. What I did was point out another instance that is logically entailed by her claim.

Look at it this way:

G: the government has a say on what to do with your body
A: government can tell you to not have an abortion
C: government can tell you to not smoke crack while breastfeeding your baby

> will be used as the sign for a conditional~ will be used as the sign for negationv will be the sign for disjunction (or)I'll post links to all the logic rules in parenthesis next to the step in the argument.

1. A v C > G (Assumption)

It is obvious that if the government can either tell you that you cannot have an abortion or if they can tell you to not smoke crack while breastfeeding your baby, then they have a say on what do with your body.

The conclusion is that G is true. The government CAN tell you what to do with your body. Disagreeing with that is disagreeing with C (that the government can't tell you to smoke crack while breastfeeding your child. Therefore, Tiny Vessel's claim that the government can't ever tell you what to do with your body is FALSE.

An analogy is not the same as a straw man, learn that. You should consider re-reading my post and try to understand the point of it.

Additionally, if Ayn Rand were publicly anti-gay marriage, it would be monstrously hypocritical if it were revealed after her death that she was gay married. Knowing you're a student of basic logic, it would follow that being publicly anti-government social programs and then collecting on one of those government social programs is pretty damn hypocritical.

So what if it's hypocritical?

If I'm smoking and I tell a small kid that if he wants to be healthy, he shouldn't do it, does that make my claim false? No. Both my claim and my behavior present no logical contradiction in the world (that means that my behavior that apparently goes against my beliefs can exist as the same time as my beliefs).

Pretending that because it's hypocritical, the statement is wrong is a textbook example of an ad hominem. So if you're trying to act like Ayn Rand's philosophy is wrong, avoid appealing to logically fallacious devices.